29 October 2008

it's the indian new year, or one of them, and i don't particularly know what to do other than what my elders tell me. this time it was, predictably, calling my elders ("superiors") and asking for blessings. which i find altogether natural, so yesterday night and today my mother and i spent a couple hours on the phone dialing india and new jersey and california and texas, calling on uncles and aunts and flute teachers and cousins and jayeshbhais (mentors) and friends and brothers and sisters.

it was incredible. pleasing. a rush. high. maybe from all the blessings. i had a vision of what hallmark, in its heart of hearts, beyond all the corporatism and commerce, is really aspiring towards. what if on national secretary appreciation day we really went and visited or called all the secretaries we ever knew, thanked them, and asked for their blessings and best wishes for the coming lunar year. lunacy. lunocracy. philocracy.

getting closer.

there was some sadness too in the long dark house with the sliding doors pointed south towards snow-covered peaks. warm days and clear nights in late october (as predicted). it's gorgeous september weather. perfect for scything and coming home to mulled appled cider. my mom had lit a few candles after the cooking class calmed down and i realized only when going to bed that Diwali is the festival of lights and lighting a candle is an integral part of the ritual. i can only imagine the other parts. big feasts and visiting families, special dishes and all night dances. it's big news everytime i go to india, six months before and after the party. and here we had a couple of sad vanilla candles and no dancing and no drumming and no flirting and certainly no marriages being planned. to the relatives' collective dismay.

so i recalled my cousin telling me it was only proper to make a "rangoli" (that is, a sort of intricate design) out of flowers, in the shape of an om, and place candles around and within it. so, in a desperate act of acculturation, i tenderly tore all the red flowers off my mother's only flowering houseplant, and assembled them into an anemic om on the checked tablecloth. with a vanilla candle a little to the left.

we're all doing the best we can. at home and in the hospital. for the new year, the new light, and the new love.

i just saw a patient, slightly confused (we say "demented" in the hospital). he thought we were in portland and was reminiscing for that great harborview hospital back in seattle. he said his son just left a 5-10 year career in a national professional sports league and was now a chaplain. we should talk. and he loves gandhi. he even told me "I love that man. Gandhi has a big heart. Like a lion.". And he was proud "Most people follow [Gandhi's] philosophy, his theology. All the American Presidents. Like Martin Luther King Junior."

I'd be proud, too. I'm proud that most people are into the Love if you have the angle light and the shimmering glare of ego and suffering don't blind you to what's really going on. I'm proud of the work everybody in this hospital is doing, proud of lovers driving each other to separation and partnership at airports, at comings and goings which reveal the strength of the ties below.

After a short lifetime of worshiping the beauties of freedom and choice, independence and aspiration, I came yesterday face to face with the gorgeous surrender to duty. A woman thousands of miles away asked me to visit a friend of hers -- just because we're both in the same state, hours and busy schedules apart -- and I shocked myself at being So Damn Eager to perform the slightest service, to honor this woman who had treated me so well, took me in as a hungry son, taught me how to sort mangos. You get the idea. As Vanessa says in her yoga teacher training, "I stand ready to obey your least command".

ready and willing here we are. festival of vanilla candles and wilted pink flowers. doing the best we can. a poem to end with, that i read earlier to the gentleman over there:

Messenger(by Mary Oliver, from _Thirst_)

My work is loving the world.Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird -- equal seekers of sweetness.Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters,which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.The phoebe, the delphinium.The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture. Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes,a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever.

03 October 2008

This morning I got to see a patient who needed medical care during hertime at the King County Jail. There's a hell of a story but theimportant parts is that she is smart enough to be writing books abouther life instead of living it. She meditates when she's not tooconnected to the vices to do so, so I'm going to bring her one of thelittle books on meditation that Reverend Heng Sure gave me a fewmonths ago, at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery. And then I rememberedthis passage from Vinoba and couldn't help typing it up...

Prison Life----------------

It was in jail that I experienced real Ashram life. All I had were afew clothes, a tumbler and a bowl. What place could there be forfollowing the vow of 'non-possession'? Bathing, eating, working wereaccording to rule, going to bed and getting up by the bell -- aperfectly regular life! One was not even allowed to fall ill! The vowof control of the palate was practiced every day; even the Ashram wasnot a better place for that. There was also plenty of time for thoughtand reflection. So even the jail could be made a part of the spiritualexercise of Ashram life.

I was even given a period of solitary confinement in a cell measuringnine feet by eight. In one corner was a stone hand-mill and in anotheran earthenware piss-pot. There was no work to do, no book to read, nopencil or paper, no chance even to go out. It was enough to drive aman mad.

However, I drew up a daily timetable for myself: ten hours for sleep,two or three hours for meditation, about three hours for eating,bathing etc., and eight hour for walking up and down. I covered atleast ten miles each day, reckoning my speed at about one and a halfmiles an hour. As I walked I sang all the hymns I knew by heart.

Once I was pacing to and fro like this at about one o'clock at night,engrossed in thought. The warder came on his rounds, and puzzled atseeing me walking about, he knocked on the door. As I was completelyabsorbed I failed to respond, and the poor man became alarmed. He camein and shook me and asked me what was the matter. I tried to explainwhat I was doing and what the fruits of such contemplation might be,and he was very pleased. The very next day I receive a real boon - hearranged for me to walk a short time daily in an open place.

I felt quite at ease in that cell. During the night I would meditatefor about three hours, and one of the warders, who noticed this, wouldcome and sit near me. One day he came with a lantern, and found thatmy eyes were closed. After waiting for some time he said: 'Babuji, mayI speak to you?' I opened my eyes and he said: 'I am leaving tomorrow.Please give me some teaching to guide me.' Seeing me sitting every daywith closed eyes he thought me some sadhu or yogi. So I gave him a fewsuggestions to satisfy him, and he went away happily.I was kept in that cell for fifteen days, and during that time Irealized the meaning of that verse in the Gita, which says: 'One whosees non-action in action, and action in non-action, is truly anenlightened being.' Finally, seeing that solitary confinement was nohardship for me, the gaoler sent me back to the 'general ward', andthere too I felt equally happy.

In 1932 I was in Dhulia jail for six months. Many of my companionsthere found jail life very dull, because they had not learned the artof acceptance, and were feeling very rebellious. I decided that it wasmy job to cheer them all up. There was no question of seeking pardonor release from the Government, so I set to work to help them not tolose heart, and to find some interest in life in jail.

During that time of imprisonment I had to take it on myself to controlall the political prisoners; conditions were such that if I had notdone so there would have been no discipline at all. They were bentupon rebellion and would listen to nobody. There were about threehundred of them, all 'freedom-fighters'. In my view, a solider offreedom ought to do some bodily labour every day as part of thediscipline of freedom. The jail discipline was to require everyprisoner to grind thirty-five pounds of flour a day. I told theauthorities that these political prisoners would refuse to do suchwork in obedience to an order, even if they were put in iron fordisobedience. 'Please don't insist on it,' I said. 'Instead, we willvoluntarily supply the whole prison with all the flour this needed,and we will take responsibility for all the kitchen work also.' Theyagreed to this proposal, so my next job was to tackle the prisoners.Everyone, I said, ought to grind at least twenty-one pounds of flourdaily. They did not all agree at once because they suspected that Imight be letting them in for something which I would not do myself.But when they saw me grinding, they all began to workenthusiastically, old and young, seniors and juniors. They not only idtheir own full quota, they ground also for the sick and the aged. Aswe worked we talked, discussing ideas and extending our knowledge. Theplace was no longer, a jail; it became an Ashram.

02 October 2008

The Guilty One (Pablo Neruda, from _The Hands of Day_)-----------------------

I declare myself guilty of never havingfashioned, with these hands I was given,a broom.

Why did I not make a broom?

Why was I given hands at all?

What purpose did they serveif I saw only the rumor of the grain,if I had ears only for the windand did not gather the threadof the broom,still green on the earth, and did not lay the tender stalks out to dryand was not able to unite themin a golden bundleor attach a wooden caneto the yellow skirtso I had a broom to sweep the paths.

So it was:I do not know how I lived m lifewithout learning, without seeing,without gathering and unitingthose elements.

At this hour I cannot denyI had the time,time,but not the hands,and so, how could I aspire with my mind to greatnessand not be capableof makinga broom,not one,one?

* * *

That's for you Gandhi. And for the importance of sweeping away the old egos that pile up within us, of purifying within and without, of joining hands "to raise the lowliest" and adopt the work we fear most.

When I go back to Sequim in a couple of days, I will make a gift to accompany this poem. I will try to make a broom.

It's my second night in a row on call and the shell has begun to crack a little bit. I kind of knew this would happen so I gave notice at the farm earlier this week and in general am going to try to put my commitments on a crash diet (with the same implications -- they will revive immediately of course) so I can focus more on Chaplaincy. It's one month into the program and I feel very half-way.

Half-way to nowhere and everywhere at once. The essence of the long-distance relationship. Or commute. Whatever. Three days in Seattle and two in Sequim the other two fall somewhere in between. And I feel half-captivated by this experience and half-repulsed by this environment; The hospital seems a whole lot less healthy than the mountains...

But I'm committed, I know that much. Not in the psych-ward sense, necessarily, but in that I know there's a reason I'm swimming here in exploration, and I have no intention of calling the test off. It's fabulous getting to know the city and its people again, spending so much time around people so sick, so connected to AIDS and IV drug use, and long histories of sadness. I learn so much.

Today I went to see a woman who didn't look like she would be going much further. She was small and dark black and frail and dying of abbreviations I haven't yet understood. And she wanted to pray and was laughing through the tubes in her face and had an ease (nothing dis- about it) of movement and smile and faith in the Good Lord. So we lifted our hearts in prayer to the Good Lord and I held her small hands in mind and she chorused every prayer I gave with hoots and hollers and hallelujah. I could feel the inspiration, had no idea what I was asking or thanking her Lord, but it just kept coming. A climactic AMEN at the end and shaking and shivering and she told right then she could FEEL the holy spirit. Feel it. And there she was, dying with the AIDS and everything, and perhaps more hopeful and confident than I have ever been.

Those were the first hands of the night.Then I went upstairs to follow-up with a patient from last night, a teacher recovering from a disastrous collision. He watched a friend die and we're talking about her upcoming memorial service. It's the first time I forgot to bring the flute and I finally meet someone who would really appreciate it. So I bring the copy Reed gave me of Neruda's _Hands of the Day_ and start reading, in English. The patient loves it, ignores the TV and closes his eyes, keeps asking me to read more. So we go through the stars and the guilt and the use of the days. As I leave he pulls my proffered hand down to the cot for a giant hug. No greater love, no greater mercy, no greater reward.

And Neruda says:

"O sun full of fingernails,animal of gold, bumblebee,sheepdog of the world,forgiveour going astray,we have arrived, we return,we are already waitingall together in the corral of day.Say we disobeyed that night,say we left it to the sleep of the moonto solve the mourning and the planets,say we withdraw into ourselves,into our own skin hungryfor love and a meal, we again areherein the sheepfold,obeyingyour long spatulas of light,your fingers that reach into everything,your cohabitation of seed.

Soon everyone set about moving,hurrying. Citizen, the day is short and there the sun is like a bullkicking in the sand:hurry in search of your shovel,your lever,your kneading trough,your thermometer,your whistle,your paintbrush or your scissors, your plaster,your freight elevator, your political bureau,your potatoes at the market:hurry, Ma'am, hurryMister,over here, this way, put your hands to good use,we are running out of daylight.

The sun, with stakes, pierced joy,hope, suffering,it traveled from one side to the other with its raysparceling out, attributing lands,and everyone has to sweatbefore it leaveswith its light for somewhere else to begin and begin again,while those on this side remainedmotionless, sleepinguntil Monday morning."

on the way here, on the commute (tending towards epic) across three buses, one ferry, and thirty blocks, i have been reading a book by richard seltzer entitled "letters to a young doctor". there's a lot going on with this older surgeon writing about the beauty and terror of the profession, but it's this passage that seems to mirror Vinoba that i'd like to share... a passage that, I would opine, is true for a great many people and professions outside of surgeons and surgery...

"It is so difficult for a surgeon to remain "unconscious," retaining the clarity of vision of childhood, to know and be secure in his ability, yet be unaware of his talents. It is almost impossible. There are all too many people around him paying obeisance, pandering, catering, beaming, lusting. Yet he must try.

It is not enough to love your work. Love of work is a kind of self-indulgence. You must go beyond that. Better to perform endlessly, repetitiously, faithfully, the simplest acts, like trimming the toenails of an old man. By so doing, you will not say _Here I am_, but _Here It Is_. You will not announce your love but will store it up in the bodies of your pateitns to carry with them wherever they go.

...

Alexander the Great had a slave whose sole responsibility was to whisper "Remeber, you are mortal" when he grew too arrogant. Pehraps every surgeon shold be assigned such a deflator. The surgeon is the mere instrument which the patient takes in his hand to heal himself. An operation, then, is a time of revelation, both physical and spiritual, when, for a little while, the secrets of the body aer set forth to be seen, to be touched, and the surgeon himself is laid open to Grace. "

This bit about "love of your work" is what I've been so amazed by the few and true workers I've seen on this planet -- they have dissovled the boundaries between being and doing such that there appears to be no work, no worker. A prodigious ratio of happening to effort and worry. And it reminds me, too, of Gandhi's words about Vinoba -- how he could do so much, how he could do anything, because he let God shoulder all his burdens...

Meanwhile, on the home front, I am still very slowly and carefully going about this learning, this work. There is a lot of subject and object going on here, like the first few times one uses a hoe, slow deliberate movements full of fear at killing a desired plant. It's full of too much unneeded weight and effort. It's full of missed spots, practical perspectival lacunae. I know the scene. Today I jumped a bit, sharpened my tools, by hanging out at a nurses station. Talking like a human being, joking and unstifled by my tie and office. We joked until I pulled out the on-call pager to show them the number, and it rang.

So I went to see a gentleman who knew he wasn't yet feeling the trauma he experienced. And he was worried he would get surprised, blindsided and thrown into the water like the vehicle that hit him. I'm always so impressed. Impressed at the awareness of the patients -- the woman who asked me if she should commit suicide and immediately answered herself, knowing that God wouldn't approve, that her heart whispered "no". I'm so blessed to be there with these humans as they heal, as they heal deeply not just from their acute ailments, but from the years and memories and guilts and sorrows that have built up to throw them in this sterile beeping prison of compassion...

01 October 2008

O generation of the thoroughly smugand thoroughly uncomfortable,I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun,I have seen them with untidy families,I have seen their smiles full of teethand heard ungainly laughter. And I am happier than you are,And they were happier than I am;And the fish swim in the lakeand do not even own clothing.